St. Paul's sends group to help victims of KatrinaPosted Aug27, 2008 at 02:05 PM
Christina Vance, Taylor Harveycutter, Cassie Conley, Allison Martin, and Rev. Brad Laycock from St. Paul’s Episcopal in Salem joined 37 other volunteers (including Sarah Bentley of Salem) to visit and to rebuild houses in New Orleans. They spent almost two weeks of their summer vacations traveling to Louisiana and on construction detail—July 25 to August 3. The trip was organized through the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia's youth coordinator Amy Bostwick. The theme seemed to be “when you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it to me.’ Time and time again that piece of scripture came up,” said Laycock. But volunteer work driven by the Diocese of Louisiana’s office of disaster recovery and by other organizations seemed to be taking hold and putting many homes and families on higher ground. On previous trips, he said, the youth primarily worked on gutting the insides of damaged houses, but this time they contributed to the final touches of five nearly finished homes. 
The Southwestern Diocese of Virginia’s sister parish in Bradford, England sent ten people for the project, too. The folks in New Orleans were encouraged by the volunteers from so far away, because “they feel in so many ways abandoned,” Laycock said. But why come so far to help folks when there are needs in every locale? “You begin to see that there are needs around you, closer to you, that you don’t necessarily have to drive 10 hours to Louisiana to do mission work,” he said. Photo 1: Taylor Harveycutter uses her sledghammer to pound away at the concrete steps in front of her residents home. A handicap ramp was being built for the resident to return. |
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Welcome to The Notebook, the community gathering place for news and tidbits from So Salem, by community journalist Miranda Adkins (that's Miranda on the left). You'll be able to find the most up-to-date news, events and stories in Salem, Glenvar and western Roanoke County here at this blog. And please join in! You can share your comments, stories, links and ideas here, too. This is your community conversation. .....Advertisement.....
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